Abstract

The European Union sees the introduction of the ePassport as a step towards rendering passports more secure against forgery while facilitating more reliable border controls. In this paper we take an interdisciplinary approach to the key security and privacy issues arising from the use of ePassports. We further analyse how European data protection legislation must be respected and what additional security measures must be integrated in order to safeguard the privacy of the EU ePassport holder.

Protection Profile BSI-PP-0016-2005 and BSI-PP-0017-2005, certified in August and October 2005 respectively by the German Federal Office for Information Security; available via http://www.bsi.de/zertifiz/zert/report.htm.

Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, OJ L 281, 23/11/1995 pp. 0031–0050.Google Scholar

12.

Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion on implementing the Council Regulation (EC) No 2252/2004 of 13 December 2004 on standards for security features and biometrics in passports and travel documents issued by Member States, adopted on 30 September 2001, 1710/05/EN (WP 112).Google Scholar